Right Before IVF a Woman Naturally Conceived Identical Quadruplets... And It Turned Her Life Upside Down

Sometimes life offers up some pretty crazy surprises when you least expect them. That’s exactly what happened to the Carles family. In the USA, 3.34% of all babies were born twins in 2016. Speaking of naturally conceived identical quadruplets, the odds of having them are just 1 in 64 million!

Here at Bright Side, we’d like to share with you the amazing story of some British identical quadruplets and their parents.

Julie and Jose married in 2005 and in their 30s dreamt of having a child together. After a year of marriage, the couple visited a doctor and found out that they were having trouble conceiving, probably because of Julie’s age. Medical tests showed that a natural pregnancy would be unlikely. Julie and Jose started to research different methods to solve this problem — and that’s when Julie got pregnant.

The Carles were so happy about the pregnancy, they immediately started preparing to have the baby. Finally, it was the time for the first sonogram, where the doctor revealed to the couple that she was carrying multiples. Julie and Jose smiled at each other thinking they were talking about twins. They definitely didn’t expect that there were actually 4 babies growing inside of her.

After the initial shock, Julie and Jose focused on the positive of the situation and looked forward to meeting their babies. The pregnancy wasn’t an easy one and doctors warned the couple that the chances of their babies’ survival and good health was just 20%. The future parents were offered a selective pregnancy termination, preferably from 4 babies to 2 babies in order to increase their chances of survival.

Later, the doctors realized that whatever would be done to one of the babies, could harm the other 3, so Julie and Jose decided to have all 4 of them. The quads were delivered at 29 weeks by emergency C-section. Each girl weighed less than 3 pounds (1.361 kg). After 8 weeks in the hospital, the girls finally got to go home.

The newborns, Jessica, Holly, Georgie, and Ellie, were genetically identical. Until the girls turned 1 year old, Julie could only tell her daughters apart by writing their initials on their feet. Raising quadruplets isn’t easy, it takes a lot of time and effort. But Julie and Jose can’t imagine their lives without the girls.

Julie was 1 of just 27 women in the world to naturally conceive identical quadruplets. Rarer still, the girls are monochorionic, which means that 1 fertilized egg created 4 identical embryos. The embryos shared the same placenta.

Sometimes the Carles quads face a certain lack of understanding from other people. Mom Julie says, “Sometimes they just say the first thing that comes into their heads. I’ve had, ‘Do they all have the same name?’ ‘What sex are they?’ ‘Did they all come out the same day?’ ” But with time, the parents got used to the increased attention because their girls are truly miracles of nature.

The Carles quadruplets spend a lot of time together — they’re inseparable! The girls have an incredibly strong bond with each other. Usually, they wear similar clothes, shoes, hairstyles, and have the same toys. Although they’re all identical, they have different personalities. Each of the girls is unique in her own way.

Now the girls are in middle school and they are in different classes trying to be on their own for the first time. Georgie Carles talked about being a quadruplet and said, “It’s different because no one I’ve ever met in my life has been an identical quad — it feels a bit strange. But I’ve learned to live with it, which is pretty awesome.”

Have you ever met identical twins, triplets or quadruplets? Would you like to have an identical sibling/siblings?